mettafuture wrote:Some ideologies cause more harm than others. The ones that cause or promote harm should be peacefully condemned.

Th elogic of that statement is faulty, mettafuture. If "Some ideologies cause more harm than others." then "The ones that cause or promote the most harm should be peacefully condemned," is more logical - note the addition - but there's still a non-sequitur: where did "peacefully condemned" come from? and where did the "should" come from? As my meditation group leader says every week, "Look at your motivation."

I live in a muslim majority country. Individually, Muslims are as fine as any religious ppl you meet, even nicer than the intrusive evangelicals. But because of these verses in their holy texts, the mandatory obedience to religious authority they are so easily riled up. Even the slightest irritant is seen as a transgression or affront against them .

chownah wrote:Education! Yes! Des anyone know where I can go to find some moderate Muslims discussing the issue of so much violence appearing in their scriptures?chownah

Hi ChownahHave you seen my other post:

There are lot of misunderstanding about all religions. We like to stereotype people, without spending little bit time to understand their point of view. If one Muslim or a group of Muslim do a bad thing we are trying to bundle all the Muslims in the same category.

Most of my acquaintance and friends and former employer are either Muslims or Christians.They all were very friendly and kind to me! So I tried to spend some time to understand their religion. There are lot of literature for Christianity but very few for Islam.

Finally I found a good video. It is very long (3 hours) but address much misconception of Muslims. They also have similar problems like (Buddhist) – Please be patient enough to see the last 15 minutes.Providing this link I do not endorse the content or intend to have a discussion about the contents of this video.

---The trouble is that you think you have time------Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe------It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---

I was trying really hard to stay out of this discussion. I am just glad that mettafuture is able to say many of the things I want to say in a short, simple, truthful and composed manner.

I apreciate what you're doing, btw. I don't know if it will be better, the same, or worse for the situation in the long run: it's unpredictable, I think.

I have felt great shame reading in other forums that all religions are violent and that buddhists are no different, reading examples of violence. The only answer I could give them was "I dare you to look in the thousands and thousands of pages of the original buddhist scriptures and find incentives to lethal violence. If you want I'll save you the trouble. There are none that I'm aware of. There is a questionable (supposed) stance of the Buddha that a country can have an army for self defense purposes only. There is the "killing a monk in this doctrine and discipline", i.e., excomunication. And there is the symbolic kiling of mother, father, etc. in the dhammapada _ this symbolism is explained in the commentary. Monks cannot kill; cannot order to kill; cannot help in abortions; they can't even praise death, leading to destruction of a human life by suicide; this is automatic cause for expulsion from the monastic order for the rest of their lives." And I further said that Jains were even more radicaly pacifists than buddhists, so this is not a "My religion is the best and all others are worthless" kind of stance

Humans are humans everywhere. But social conditioning is very, very powerful. And cultures and religions are the main conditioners of a society. So I have to be tolerant of humans, but I don't have to be tolerant of all (sub)cultures, eg, I am not tolerant towards white supremacism. And I don't have to be tolerant towards all religions, eg, scientology. This last statement seems like a completely reasonable one for anyone who knows what scientology is. All I ask is for you to observe the reaction in your mind if I had substituted the word "scientology" with "islam" in the last sentence. And, in all complete honesty with yourself, why did you have that reaction?

He turns his mind away from those phenomena, and having done so, inclines his mind to the property of deathlessness: 'This is peace, this is exquisite — the resolution of all fabrications; the relinquishment of all acquisitions; the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding.' (Jhana Sutta - Thanissaro Bhikkhu translation)

No doubt one can find good in any religion or philosophy. But it becomes irrelevant when even a fraction of 1.6 billion people choose to look to the more aggressive parts of the religion for inspiration and direction. That's the reality on the ground.

Edit: I think it was Sam Harris that pointed out that in the past, nasty people can only throw spears or use their bow and arrows. but in today's age, one's aggression is magnified tremendously with modern weapons.

pilgrim wrote:Edit: I think it was Sam Harris that pointed out that in the past, nasty people can only throw spears or use their bow and arrows. but in today's age, one's aggression is magnified tremendously with modern weapons.

Yes. That's probably a big part of why so many Western countries have such gigantic national security apparatuses. The "little guy" can actually "hit back" and do substantial damage.

mettafuture wrote:Some ideologies cause more harm than others. The ones that cause or promote harm should be peacefully condemned.

The logic of that statement is faulty, mettafuture.

The opposite of condemn is to tolerate. If an ideology clearly and explicitly instructs its followers to behead infidels, why shouldn't it be condemned, or at least not supported so that it can't gain too much political power? Luckily many Muslims ignore or attempt to reinterpret the hate in the Quran, but there are also many who don't.

"Look at your motivation."

I have. As I said before, I want to present the other side of the Muslim / Buddhist conflict. Some of you have brought up Islam specifically, so I've shared some of my opinions on it.

SarathW wrote:We like to stereotype people, without spending little bit time to understand their point of view.

You should consider reading the Quran. It'll help you understand their point of view. The Yusuf-Ali translation is very popular, but you may find the Sahih International translation easier to read. They're both available as inexpensive ebooks on Amazon.

mettafuture wrote:Some ideologies cause more harm than others. The ones that cause or promote harm should be peacefully condemned.

The logic of that statement is faulty, mettafuture.

The opposite of condemn is to tolerate. If an ideology clearly and explicitly instructs its followers to behead infidels, why shouldn't it be condemned, or at least not supported so that it can't gain too much political power? Luckily many Muslims ignore or attempt to reinterpret the hate in the Quran, but there are also many who don't.

You haven't addressed my point about the logic.

mettafuture wrote:

"Look at your motivation."

I have. As I said before, I want to present the other side of the Muslim / Buddhist conflict. Some of you have brought up Islam specifically, so I've shared some of my opinions on it.

That's what you want to do. Motivation is the "why". "What is your motivation" = why you want to present the other side of the Muslim / Buddhist conflict.

Modus.Ponens wrote:I have felt great shame reading in other forums that all religions are violent and that buddhists are no different, reading examples of violence. The only answer I could give them was "I dare you to look in the thousands and thousands of pages of the original buddhist scriptures and find incentives to lethal violence. If you want I'll save you the trouble. There are none that I'm aware of.

I've looked for these verses as well. I'm convinced that murder is never encouraged in the Tipitaka.

There is a questionable (supposed) stance of the Buddha that a country can have an army for self defense purposes only.

In a world where there are people willing to kill you, and rape-murder children, defensive measures are a necessity. But I'm fervently against any kind of preemptive attack unless it was known, with almost absolute certainty, that innocent lives couldn't be protected any other way.

All I ask is for you to observe the reaction in your mind if I had substituted the word "scientology" with "islam" in the last sentence. And, in all complete honesty with yourself, why did you have that reaction?

The difference between most religions and cults are the number of adherents. When a cult gains enough followers to qualify as a "world religion", some people feel a need to respect it, even if it's categorically bad, and can be easily used to justify evil actions.

All I ask is for you to observe the reaction in your mind if I had substituted the word "scientology" with "islam" in the last sentence. And, in all complete honesty with yourself, why did you have that reaction?

The difference between most religions and cults are the number of adherents. When a cult gains enough followers to qualify as a "world religion", some people feel a need to respect it, even if it's categorically bad, and can be easily used to justify evil actions.

That's not actualy the mental process that happens in the (decent) western mindset _ although there's some truth to that. What happens is that all people _ except probably the aryas _ have prejudice of every kind. Even against their own ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, culture and nationality. There are degrees to this. You are not either completely racist nor completely indiferent to race. As long as you have attachment and aversion, prejudice will exist. The way the overwhelming majority of decent people in the west deal with this is by repressing it. And the repression is proportional to the intensity of the prejudice and its unacceptability in their minds. What we see regarding islam is exactly that: repression of emotions, resulting in a visible double standard. If you say something ugly about the catholic church, well within the limits of the reasonable, many western people go "Yes, that's about it." If you say the exact same thing about islam, it's imediatly considered outrageous. It isn't even discussed. It's labeled as hateful ignorance and there's no possible further analysis. It's unacceptable for decent western people, to feel prejudice, so they/we completely repress it and take the opposite positioning for compensation. That's what I was trying to get at in my previous post.

He turns his mind away from those phenomena, and having done so, inclines his mind to the property of deathlessness: 'This is peace, this is exquisite — the resolution of all fabrications; the relinquishment of all acquisitions; the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding.' (Jhana Sutta - Thanissaro Bhikkhu translation)

---The trouble is that you think you have time------Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe------It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---

Specific examples of literalist, fundamentalist readings that still dominate Christian attitudes worldwide are manifested in the resistance to progress in human rights, gender-equality and democratic socio-political reforms that are too-often heard from socially-conservative Christians.

... with one word changed (twice). Okay, that was naughty but it's worth thinking about. I suspect it will resonate more strongly with our American members than with us laid-back pluralist Aussies.

---The trouble is that you think you have time------Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe------It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---

On principle, Buddhists and Muslims hold doctrines that are irreconcilable.So as long as Buddhists are Buddhists and Muslims are Muslims, there is no possibility of reconciliation.

mettafuture wrote:and the history between Buddhists and Muslims.

"Buddhists" by whose standard of what it means to be a Buddhist?"Muslims" by whose standards of what it means to be a Muslim?

IOW, I think the crux of the matter is that unless we resort to very superficial ideas about what makes someone an adherent of a particular religion, it's usually very hard to talk about adherents of a religion and use the name for them.

A news report may say that Muslims have killed Buddhists, or that Buddhists have killed Muslims. But what do we actually know about these particular Buddhists and Muslims?How Buddhists were those Buddhists actually?How Muslim were those Muslims actually?Who is to say?

A journalist may label someone as a "Buddhist" or a "Muslim" - but inasmuch are this journalist's standards for judging another person's religiosity really adequate? Or a politician's standards for judging another person's religiosity, and whoever else's standards for judging another person's religiosity?

mettafuture wrote:In a world where there are people willing to kill you, and rape-murder children, defensive measures are a necessity.

What about protective chants for Buddhists?

-- And yes, I suppose some people will think I'm making light. I'm not. I'm just seriously considering the possibility that protective chants might actually do the good they are supposed to do - provided that one regularly chants them.

Modus.Ponens wrote:What we see regarding islam is exactly that: repression of emotions, resulting in a visible double standard. If you say something ugly about the catholic church, well within the limits of the reasonable, many western people go "Yes, that's about it." If you say the exact same thing about islam, it's immediately considered outrageous. It isn't even discussed. It's labeled as hateful ignorance and there's no possible further analysis. It's unacceptable for decent western people, to feel prejudice, so they/we completely repress it and take the opposite positioning for compensation. That's what I was trying to get at in my previous post.

Very good point. I also think peace loving people don't want to feel as if they've contributed to the Islamophobic attitude that's starting to arise around the world. This attitude has resulted in the harassment of moderate Muslims simply because they were dressed in Muslim clothing. However, these acts shouldn't stop us from shining a spotlight on the problems within Islam itself, while promoting tolerance for moderate Muslims.

Radical Islamists wouldn't exist if there was no Islam. And "radical Buddhism" only arose out of response to radical Islam.

binocular wrote:A journalist may label someone as a "Buddhist" or a "Muslim" - but inasmuch are this journalist's standards for judging another person's religiosity really adequate? Or a politician's standards for judging another person's religiosity, and whoever else's standards for judging another person's religiosity?

I talked a little about this in a blog titled [Linked Removed]. Basically, while there may be violent Buddhists, I don't believe a "violent Buddhism" exists. But Islam is inherently violent, and it requires a lot of academic manipulation to downplay its violence.

What about protective chants for Buddhists?

I seriously doubt a protective chant would have much effect on someone who's chasing you down with a machete trying to cut your head off.

Last edited by mettafuture on Thu Jan 30, 2014 8:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

Modus.Ponens wrote:What we see regarding islam is exactly that: repression of emotions, resulting in a visible double standard. If you say something ugly about the catholic church, well within the limits of the reasonable, many western people go "Yes, that's about it." If you say the exact same thing about islam, it's immediately considered outrageous. It isn't even discussed. It's labeled as hateful ignorance and there's no possible further analysis. It's unacceptable for decent western people, to feel prejudice, so they/we completely repress it and take the opposite positioning for compensation. That's what I was trying to get at in my previous post.

Very good point. I also think peace loving people don't want to feel as if they've contributed to the Islamophobic attitude that's starting to arise around the world. This attitude has resulted in the harassment of moderate Muslims simply because they were dressed in Muslim clothing. However, these acts shouldn't stop us from shining a spotlight on the problems within Islam itself, while promoting tolerance for moderate Muslims.

And I also realized something in the meantime, reading your post. Since islamophobia is prevalent in the world, if decent people deny their islamophobia, only the undecent people will express it. And that's very dangerous because fascists don't bother separating the human being, and his/her fundamental and undeniable human rights, from the religion that that human being has. If more decent people are involved in telling the truth it's more likely to exist a reasonable and considerate response to this problem _ as opposed to the fascists' way.

He turns his mind away from those phenomena, and having done so, inclines his mind to the property of deathlessness: 'This is peace, this is exquisite — the resolution of all fabrications; the relinquishment of all acquisitions; the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding.' (Jhana Sutta - Thanissaro Bhikkhu translation)